According to both pollsters and popular opinion, there is no way that Jeremy Corbyn can win the general election. YouGov’s latest poll has only 23 percent of people hypothetically voting for the party.

‘The group least likely to vote is young women aged 18-24’

It would take a miracle, they say, for Corbyn to lead this nation – or, I’d argue, one five-minute Zoella video entitled “Corbyn does my make-up”.

Corbyn applies lipstick to her eyes

Picture the scene. Riffing off the popular “Boyfriend does my make-up” genre among beauty YouTubers, Jeremy Corbyn picks up MAC’s number 224 Tapered Blending Brush and says: “What’s this then? Where does this go?” Zoella, Britain’s premier vlogger with nearly 12 million subscribers, throws her head back and giggles.

After Corbyn applies lipstick to her eyes and eyeshadow to her lips, Zoella – real name Zoe Sugg – signs off her video. “Don’t forget to Like, Comment and Subscribe!” she says. “And vote in the 2017 general election,” adds the Labour leader, gruffly.

This is not some far-fetched fetishistic new YouTube trend, but potentially the only way Labour – or Ukip, or the Lib Dems – can get young people to the polls. Joking aside (who’s joking? I’m not joking), the group least likely to vote is young women aged 18-24. This group also makes up the largest percentage of Zoella’s viewers.

Bloggers and voting

There is no denying, then, that vloggers and bloggers could play their part in this year’s election. Instead of Corbyn setting up his own “haul” channel (“Jam! More Jam! A marrow!”), all we need is YouTubers – now some of the most influential people on the planet – to encourage their young followers to vote.

This is the rationale behind the new hashtag #BloggersWhoVote. Started by blogger Laura Jane Williams on the day the election was announced, the hashtag hopes to inspire prominent bloggers to start talking about politics.

Williams, the hashtag’s creator, also hopes that vloggers and bloggers will be able to make voting “something cool and sexy”.

“People don’t respond to bullying or self-righteousness, but people do like to feel part of something,” she says. She is so social media savvy that she even saved placing the hashtag on Instagram until the evening, because that’s when more people are traditionally online.

A rose-gold ‘I voted’ badge

Coupled with a trendy rose-gold “I voted!” badge, it is easy to see how bloggers and vloggers could make voting popular. “If respected and liked bloggers encourage their followers to register to vote, when it takes five minutes, it gets people invested in election talk,” says Williams.

Politicians have cottoned on to the power of YouTubers before. Barack Obama invited a host of them to the White House in 2014, and in May 2015 Ed Miliband filmed a video with beauty guru Sprinkleofglitter. Had he chosen Zoella, would Theresa May be leading the country today?

The mainstream media have repeatedly failed to engage Britain’s youth. Though many lament the rise of “new” media vloggers, it is easy to see how they could become a force for good. Zoella et al. could – at the click of a button – reinvigorate the youth vote. Now I’d subscribe to that.

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